Tinubu, Shettima to open defence Wednesday in petition by Peter Obi
President Ahmed Bola Tinubu and Vice President Senator Kashim Shettima will open their defence on Wednesday, July 5, 2023, in the joint petition filed by the Labour Party and its flagbearer, Peter Obi, challenging Tinubu’s declaration as the winner of the February 25 presidential election.
The Tribunal issued the new date following the decision of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), which conducted the disputed election to close its case after calling just one witness.
After the evidence of the electoral body’s sole witness, Lawrence Bayode, INEC’s Director of Information Technology (IT) department, and the adoption of his witness statement on oath deposed to on April 10, the lead counsel to INEC, Abubakar Mahmoud (SAN), announced the closure of its case in the petition.
Leading the witness in evidence, Mahmoud tendered the cloud trail log report and certification as evidence.
The court thereafter admitted the documents as exhibits and considered them read and demonstrated before it.
Under cross-examination by Chief Wole Olanipekun, counsel to Tinubu and Shettima, the witness agreed that the foundation of any election conducted by INEC is the results recorded in Forms EC8As and that blurred results downloaded from INEC’s I-ReV will not affect the results recorded in Form EC8As.
The witness agreed with Olanipekun that the E-Naira, launched in October 2021, has not been activated due to technological impediments and that the E-Naira App had to be taken from the Google Play store to fix its technological glitches shortly after its launch.
Answering questions from counsel to the All Progressives Congress (APC), Lateef Fagbemi (SAN), said the witness stated that it was the physical results in Forms EC8As that INEC used to compute the results of the Presidential election.
After the testimony of the sole witness, Mahmoud announced the closure of INEC’s defence in the petition filed by Obi and his party against Tinubu’s election.
